Dean, a native of Bluffton, S.C. returns to the 2.66-mile superspeedway looking to rekindle a cool moment when the former Late Model standout scored his first ARCA win in his second start two years

ago at Talladega.

The triumph — burst the well-liked South Carolinian onto the scene and allowed his relationship with GREE, the world’s largest manufacturer of specialized cooling and heating products to blossom.

Determined to win his second ARCA race but first with Mooresville, N.C-based Win-Tron Racing, the 23-year-old believes his team has the capabilities to relive one of the best days of his life.

“Talladega will always be a special place for me,” said Dean. “I love the place for obvious reasons, but I also enjoy restrictor plate racing. The strong car my Win-Tron Racing gave me in Daytona has me excited to get back to Talladega and see what we can do.”

While the results haven’t been what Dean or his Jamie Jones led team has hoped thus far, the team has shown strength in the speed of their No. 32 GREE Cooling Products | Baker Distributing Chevrolet in the first three races of 2018.

The team hasn’t qualified any worse than eighth and at Daytona in February, Dean contended for a top-five finish despite being collected in an early race incident before being involved in another crash on the initial white flag of the race.

Dean’s superspeedway car was heavily damaged in the season-opening race, but diligent work by Win-Tron and Performance Vehicle Works have repaired the car to bring him an equal or better car to what he had at Daytona.

“Daytona was the first race for the composite car on a superspeedway and I was pretty happy with it,” added Dean. “We knew some changes we wanted to make to make our No. 32 GREE Cooling Products | Baker Distributing Chevrolet better for Talladega. I think we will be better.”

Settled inside the top-10 in the championship standings, Dean isn’t concerned about the championship at this point, instead – he’s focused on earning as many points as possible – hoping his performance will allow his Kevin Cywinski-owned team to crawl out of their deficit from Daytona and Nashville.

“We just need to do us,” Dean explained. “We’ve made some huge gains in qualifying and that’s allowed us to start near the front. Now, we just need to keep doing our best to capitalize on those strong starting spots and turning them into top-five finishes and wins.

“I know with Jamie and the devoted effort from my team, we’ll get there.”

Kevin Cywinski, team principal of Win-Tron Racing says while restrictor-plate racing is nerve-wracking from an owners’ perspective, however, having a qualified driver like Dean behind the wheel eases some of the nervousness.

“For the past couple years, Gus has shown a knack for plate racing,” he said. “He is smart when it comes to plate racing. He listens and knows when to push it and when to back off. He showed that at Daytona and I know he has the capabilities to do it again this weekend at Talladega.

“He wants to win for GREE, Tradewinds and Baker Distributing in the worst way. And so, do I. Hopefully, on Friday afternoon we can avoid the chaos and get it done.”

In 30 career ARCA Racing Series starts, Dean captured his first career victory in his second ever start at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway after starting a career-best second in Apr. 2016. Overall, Dean has eight top-five and 18 top-10 finishes.

The General Tire 200 (76 laps | 202 miles) is the fourth of 20 races on the 2018 ARCA Racing Series presented by Menards schedule. Practice begins Fri., Apr. 27 with an hour and fifty-minute practice session from 8:30 a.m. – 10:20 a.m. Group qualifying is set for later in the day at 2:30 p.m. The race is set to take the green flag later in the day shortly after 5:00 p.m. The event will be televised live on FOX Sports 1 (FS1), while ARCARacing.comwill stream live timing and scoring throughout the entire weekend festivities. All times are local (Central).